la villa de guadalupe

the virgin of guadalupe.

she is everywhere. 

i think somewhere in my brain 

it must have registered

that all of the paintings or pictures of her look the same.

and maybe somewhere in my brain

i wondered why that was. 

but i certainly wasn't aware any of this was going on.

when rcg and i went to go see

the shroud that was supposedly stained with a picture of the virgin

and then given to juan diego

by the virgin herself

i imagined that it would look like most other religious things. 

i figured it would be something that 

if you squint a little

would look kind of like a lady, 

and of course let's just assume it is the virgin. 

since she was the one who appeared to juan diego,

after all.

i had no idea the shroud that juan diego 

got from the virgin of guadalupe 

would look like it did.

i mean, 

it is a freaking picture

of the virgin.

what???

and it is 500 years old.

and not faded. 

come on. 

it must be a fake, right?

au contraire.

that thing was baller.

and the set up to see it was baller too.

you get on a moving walkway

that passes underneath.

so there are no heinous lines,

and no crowding around,

and no waiting for a million years to see it.

amazing.

why don't other famous things have this system?

i mean, the louvre could really learn a lesson from this.

and there was a whole village

that has been built for the pilgrims of the virgin.